Should England have an English Parliament?

Political Editor Phil Hornby blogs from Parliament

Derek Wyatt, the Labour MP for Sittingbourne and Sheppey, led a special debate today calling for an English Parliament. He says it's crazy that Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales all have assemblies or parliaments - and we don't. He says it's unfair, and it's leading to a lot of resentment.

I am not sure how this will go down with his leader Gordon Brown - well, I am actually - so don't expect Mr Wyatt's ideas to become Labour Party policy.

But the English question will be a factor at the next election, especially in the key battleground that is the south and southeast.

The truth is, Labour's consitutional changes, much heralded when Tony Blair came to power, are unfinished business. Reform of the House of Lords is stuck; reform of the voting system has ground to a halt; regional government is dead; and Labour's hierarchy are in denial about England's democratic deficit.

The Conservatives haven't come up with a coherent policy either. Traditionally the party of the Union, they're terrified of being really bold.

But Derek Wyatt is right.

England expects a system that gives it a fair deal.

Gordon Brown on the FA Cup

Political Editor Phil Hornby blogs from Parliament

Gordon Brown held his monthly news conference at Downing Street today. There were lots of questions about 10p tax, the credit crunch, his future as Prime Minister…

And then a journalist from Wales popped up to ask him if he was going to wish Cardiff City luck in the Cup Final. “You’re a Raith Rovers fan,” the questioner reminded him. “So will you be cheering for the underdogs on Saturday?”

Now, Mr Brown is too canny to fall for that one. Sure, he’s sometimes accused of dithering, and of not being able to make his mind up – but this time, his indecision was completely understandable.

There are of course lots of votes in Cardiff – but there are two important parliamentary seats in Portsmouth, including Portsmouth North which is a marginal Labour seat.

So, in a diplomatic triumph, the Prime Minister said he was looking forward to watching the Final, was sure it would be a terrific match….and wished both teams well.

Political memoirs pack punches

Political Correspondent Sally Biddulph blogs from Parliament


Another day, another memoir….there has been quite a run on them of late in Westminster. We’ve got the former Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott’s: “Prezza: Pulling no Punches”, Cherie Blair’s “Speaking for Myself” and Labour’s former chief Fundraiser and Tony Blair’s tennis buddy, Lord Levy’s “A Question of Honour” – all released within a week of one another and all making uncomfortable reading for a wounded Prime Minister.

All of them talk about the stormy relationship between Gordon Brown, then Chancellor, and the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair. We’ve heard about the keys to Number 10 being rattled above Tony Blair’s head from Cherie, "Prezza" saying he told Tony Blair to sack Gordon Brown and Lord Levy saying he felt let down by both Number 10 and Number 11 during the “Cash for Honours” investigation. The PM has said he won’t be swayed by such memoirs and is getting down to the “serious business of politics” and running the country. He may have decided to turn his attentions to fixing the 10p tax fiasco, but journalists’ bags up here are weighed down with the three tomes, as we all search for that next nugget of intrigue. With serialisations in major newspapers, there’ll be more revelations to come.

I actually bumped into Lord Levy yesterday in Millbank, our Westminster Studios, and said to him I had bought his book. He shook my hand firmly, looked me straight in the eyes, pulled me close and kissed me on both cheeks and said “how marvellous my dear!”. I have never met this man before and was quite taken aback by his sheer exuberance. He went on to say “do tell me what you think, even if you think it’s total rubbish (he actually used a far more emphatic word, which we can’t print here) drop me a line at the Lords”

And as a final thought, at a press lunch on Tuesday, the Tory leader and Witney MP, David Cameron, was asked, “whose memoir would you fear most and why?”. Without hesitation he said, “My wife, Samantha’s!” An instinctive answer perhaps and one that left me wondering if it was a veiled warning to Tony Blair about Cherie’s!

MP John Denham rallies troubled Labour

Political Producer Ben Burton blogs from Parliament

It’s no secret that the vast majority of Labour MPs in the South and South-East are a tad concerned about holding on to their jobs.

And it’s made even more unpleasant when they see poll ratings as bad as those which have dominated the weekend’s papers. Many of them are on such small majorities that it only needs a small swing to the Tories for them to be quickly adding to the unemployment figures after polling day.

However one of the region’s more experienced campaigners believes that Labour aren’t yet finished. Not for the first time John Denham MP (Southampton Itchen and pictured right) has returned to his “Southern Comfort” theme.

And Mr Denham can certainly draw a crowd. A large meeting room in Portcullis House – the modern extension to Parliament, built above Westminster tube station – was packed to hear his message: Labour can still win in the South. If they don’t, he said, there’s no way they’ll stay in power. It would be close to impossible for Labour to form a majority at the next General Election without a decent clutch of seats from our part of the world.

As the only Cabinet member with a seat in the South he highlights issues like Inheritance Tax and housing as part of the key to bringing the undecided voters back on board as David Cameron’s Conservatives continue breathing down their necks. Many Labour party members from across our region travelled to London to hear what the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills had to say but one subject was surprisingly absent. Despite his recent troubles no one at the meeting wanted to point the finger of blame at the Prime Minister.

Now, the thought of anyone actually trying to kick Gordon Brown out of Number 10 still looks unlikely. But many MPs know that, regardless of policies and ideas, the PM will be an enormous factor - good or bad - when a General Election does come around.

John Denham has called on his party to do more to understand hard working people in the South and South-East who feel they’re being ignored and he says Labour must develop a clearer vision.
The Southampton MP is highly respected in Westminster. His principled resignation from the Blair government over Iraq won him many admirers. His ideas will get a broad audience.

But the government’s problems over the 10 pence tax debacle still rumble on and not for the first time a by-election could set the political weather for months to come. Voters go to the polls in Crewe & Nantwich in ten days time. A 10 per cent swing to the Tories would give them an historic victory and if repeated come a General Election would see almost every Labour seat in the South and South-East turn blue.

You can watch the latest political reports, comments and analysis on ITV Local

Morale low as Labour return to work

Political Editor Phil Hornby blogs from Parliament

MPs are back at Westminster after the long weekend. And what a long, long weekend it's been for Labour MPs from the south and southeast.

Almost all of them know they are staring down the barrel. Last week's local election results were so bad, and morale in the party is so low.

Conversations I have had with some of them today suggest they weren't cheered up by the Gordon Brown's weekend TV appearances.

To watch a Prime Minister sit in TV studios and be accused of being 'strange' and having a cabinet full of 'youngsters and pygmies' didn't do much to reassure them about their party's prospects.

Tory MPs on the other hand just can't stop smiling in the Westminster sunshine. Many of them will be heading north in the next few weeks, to help out in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, which has taken on huge importance in the past few days. If the Tories win there, the pro-Cameron momentum will feel unstoppable.

The Conservatives though have quite a few awkward questions to answer. What will their policies be? There are lots of generalisations, but not many specifics.

Take the environmental agenda, for instance. Being pro-green sounds attractive, but what about green taxes? Will the Tories be bold enough to talk about increasing the tax on fuel (making driving, and flying, more expensive)? What about the bin tax, which is so unpopular Gordon Brown has now un-announced it twice? What about airport expansion? What about a tax on plastic bags?

And, again, on poverty, it's easy to criticise the fiasco over the 10p tax rate, but what exactly would the Tories do to help the least well-off?

They will say they don't have to come up with specific proposals until the next general elections, which is true - but these are difficult decisions, whenever they are made.

As for the Liberal Democrats, their southern MPs know a big Tory comeback would sweep most of them away. They desperately need Nick Clegg to make an impact, and not just in the pages of GQ magazine.

The next election is probably two years away, and that's an awful long time in politics. Remember just eight months ago Labour were riding high in the polls and some grumbling Conservatives were saying David Cameron's days were numbered.

But things do feel very different here at the moment. It's as if something very significant is happening, a big change which will be incredibly difficult for Labour to do anything about. In fact it feels here just as it did in the early 1990s, when the tide turned against the Tories. They suffered three landslide by-election defeats in the south - in Newbury, Christchurch and Eastleigh. And Tory MPs knew they were doomed.

That's just how quite a lot of Labour MPs feel right now.

Phil Horby: UKIP enters Westminster

Political Editor Phil Hornby blogs from parliament.

UKIP are celebrating today - they have their first MP at Westminster. And I am partly responsible.

Castle Point MP Bob Spink (pictured right) left the Tory party last month, and said he would continue in the Commons as an Independent Conservative. But behind the scenes, UKIP leader and South East MEP Nigel Farage was busy wooing Mr Spink, and this morning the defection was announced at a news conference held in one of the Commons' old committee rooms.

And yes, unwittingly, I am the man who brought them together. In 2003, the House of Commons Press Gallery held a dinner to celebrate its bicentenary. I invited a group of parliamentarians, from all different parties, to celebrate with us. Among them were Messrs Farage and Spink, who, purely by chance, were seated next to each other. They’d never met before in their lives. Today Mr Farage told us that was the moment his friendship with Bob Spink began, and today, five years later, we saw the result.

It's a coup for UKIP, and really the only way they can expect to get representation at Westminster. The chances of UKIP actually winning a parliamentary seat under the first-past-the-post system are as remote as ever.

It's a different matter in the European Parliament, of course. Proportional representation means smaller parties have a much better chance of being elected. It was the Meridian region which elected the first ever UKIP MEPs in 1999, and the Meridian region which returned the largest number in 2004.

Their most high-profile MEP then was elected in the East Midlands - none other than Robert Kilroy Silk, the former Labour MP and TV presenter. His victory gave UKIP fabulous publicity at the time, although the love affair was short-lived and Kilroy Silk soon fell out with just about everyone in UKIP and ended up setting up his own political party in a blaze of publicity. He was going to transform the system with a brand new kind of honest politics, he told us all. But it didn't happen, of course. Hands up anyone who can remember what his party was even called?

It's unlikely Bob Spink will go his own way anytime soon, but UKIP's enemies - and there are lots of them - are already predicting a disastrous clash of egos between Messrs Spink and Farage.

Mr Farage seemed remarkably relaxed about everything when I spoke to him today - just delighted at last to have a UKIP presence on the Commons green benches.

And people underestimate UKIP at their peril. In the early days, they were dismissed by many critics as, at best, an irrelevance, and, at worst, an undisciplined bunch of nutters. Now they have representation in the European Parliament (where, incidentally they outnumber the UK Greens 9 - 2), the House of Lords and the House of Commons.

As for Bob Spink, he faced the inevitable question today: The people of Castle Point voted you in as a Conservative MP, so now you've changed parties, why not stand down and fight a by-election? To which he gave the inevitable response: The people of Castle Point didn't vote for the Conservative Party in 2005, they voted for Bob Spink.

Well, that's as may be. The Conservatives say you could hear the popping of champagne corks at their party HQ this morning. In other words, good riddance. And the Tories can afford to be fairly unruffled by a UKIP defection at the moment. After all, it's the economy, not Europe, which is dominating politics. Nevertheless, recent history tells us that if UKIP get, say, 1000 votes in a marginal seat in a general election, that can be the difference between victory and defeat.

The Meridian region has the most marginal seats in the country - especially in Kent and Bob Spink's Essex. To reduce the impact of UKIP at the next election, the Conservatives must do their best to neutralise Europe as an issue. UKIP's plan is the exact opposite, and Mr Farage, with his new MP Mr Spink, will be pulling out all the stops between now and polling day.

Oh, and congratulations if you remembered the name of Robert Kilroy Silk's party - Veritas!

Watch Phil Hornby's lunchtime report on Bob Spink here.